


you begin to admire the holy

by sixpences



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Anal Sex, Consensual Mind Control, Domesticity, Getting Together, M/M, Only One Bed, Oral Sex, Possessiveness, Slight Monster!Jon, Unorthodox Use of Beholding Powers, post-159
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:01:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23058928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sixpences/pseuds/sixpences
Summary: He wanted to know, wanted to pull everything that was Martin into his mind and savour it, wanted Martin open before him like a book, like the palm of his own hand.He wanted Martin. He wanted toknowMartin. If there was ever a difference he had no idea how to tease it apart.Concerning the Archivist, and Jonathan Sims, and building a life with Martin Blackwood
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 35
Kudos: 497





	you begin to admire the holy

**Author's Note:**

> With thanks to [springofviolets](https://archiveofourown.org/users/springofviolets), who beta'ed for me even though she doesn't go here.
> 
> Title is from ["I Am Aware"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQdKtOHxswI), by Right Away, Great Captain!

He'd decided that it wasn't weird to watch Martin while he slept, as long as Martin didn't find out about it. Observation could change the nature of things, after all, so it was perfectly sensible to conclude that watching Martin sleep was completely fine and normal as long as he was the only one who knew he did it.

It was possible Jon should have been getting more sleep himself, but staying awake felt preferable. They were two days in the safehouse, two days from London and from the Institute and from everything they'd left behind, and he was still dreaming the Archivist's dreams, stepping into a hundred horrors a night.

Martin drooled a bit (of course), and snored a bit ( _of course_ ), but he had an openness to his face while he slept, something soft and unguarded and gentle that went deeper than his fussing and his cups of tea and back before the trauma and the loneliness and the grief. With his slightly overgrown, mousy blond hair falling over his forehead and the way the low light caught the freckles dusted over his nose, he looked like Jon imagined the Martin before the archives had looked, the Martin before sinister forces pressed at every corner of his life, the Martin Jon had never known.

Maybe that was what bothered him. He knew Martin, probably better than he knew anyone, but it wasn't _enough_ ; there were things about Martin that were still secrets to him, and it itched frustratingly in his head. He wanted to know, wanted to pull everything that was _Martin_ into his mind and savour it, wanted Martin open before him like a book, like the palm of his own hand.

He wanted Martin. He wanted to _know_ Martin. If there was ever a difference he had no idea how to tease it apart. He'd certainly given up on trying to figure out if this was some weird sex aspect of Beholding or if this was just what it felt like to really fancy someone and it had been so incredibly long he'd forgotten. Given what he was now, it wasn't as if it mattered.

And he didn't need to tell Martin about it. The pull of it, the hunger for knowledge, wasn't so strong that he couldn't overcome it like he could push away his other unsavoury urges. It didn't hurt that just imagining that conversation was so mortifyingly awkward he wanted to leap out of a window.

He could just watch, until eventually sleep overtook him too. That was what he was best at, after all. 

* * *

Unlike Jon, Martin had a morning routine almost like that of a real adult. He got up early to shower and then make tea, and had taken to waking Jon with it since their second morning there. He spent the first few days organising the cottage quite meticulously, even a little obsessively, hauling in scrap and skip finds from nearby villages, plus a collection of old crates, to make up for Daisy's minimal furnishing tastes, until the place almost felt homey. They had a little table to eat at, a battered two-seater sofa, and their handful of books shelved in a makeshift bookcase. Jon had helped him get an old chest of drawers up the stairs to the bedroom, where the few clothes they'd left London with now sat neatly folded and stored.

Martin hadn't looked for another bed. Jon refused to let himself know more than that, and definitely was not going to ask, in case Martin got the idea that _he_ was uncomfortable with sharing. He wasn't. He was the opposite of uncomfortable. But he didn't really know how he felt about Martin getting that idea either.

The poetry wasn't something he sought out deliberately, but Martin left his notebook out one morning while he was getting milk from the village, and Jon registered that it was there and knew what was inside it almost in the same moment. Martin had started on something new, about the vast wilderness of the highlands and yet how much lonelier it had been amongst millions of people in London.

It wasn't exactly award-winning stuff, but the poems had a particular expressiveness to them, a voice that was both very much the Martin he recognised and something new besides. It was really just an accident that he noticed the notebook again the following morning, and checked if Martin had written any more.

He wasn't _such_ an awful boss that he didn't know Martin liked to cook, but he was surprised both by how good he was at it, and how patient he was with the fact that Jon was entirely capable of burning water.

"Just watch what I do," he said, pointing at the onion in front of them with the tip of the kitchen knife in his hand. "You want to cut off the top and then halve it _through_ the roots, like this."

"But you don't eat the roots?"

"No, it just holds the layers together while you cut. You get rid of it at the end. Now you peel the skin off the first half and lay it down, and cut it twice like this, with the knife flat, then across the top towards the root, and then again the other way." The onion half fell apart into neat little chunks and Martin beamed at Jon as if he hadn't just performed some kind of arcane magic trick.

"Did you used to work in a restaurant or something?" That was the sort of thing you found out about colleagues within the first few weeks. How did he not know these kinds of mundane facts about Martin?

"Well, yes, actually, but not as a cook, I just washed dishes. I learned how to cook from Youtube." He handed Jon the kitchen knife. "Can you do the other half while I get the oil heating?"

Jon only cut himself once- thankfully it healed up before he could bleed all over the chopping board- and he managed to reduce his onion half to… smaller pieces than it had been in before.

"Oh, well done," Martin said when he looked back over, as if Jon was a three-year-old who had just produced an only moderately terrible finger painting. "Let me show you how to do the garlic too."

He watched the way Martin's hands moved, the pressure of his fingers on the knife, the little jump he made when he tipped the onions and garlic into the pot and the oil spat up at him. Jon came up next to him as he started to stir, and reached for the spoon. When their hands brushed it felt as if a spark jumped between them and Martin's head jerked around towards him.

"Can I stir?" he asked. Martin blinked.

"Um. Of course."

Jon took the spoon from him and started to poke at the onions at the bottom of the pan. "So what does this actually… do?"

Something about Jon's total incompetence seemed to put Martin at ease, which didn't really bear dwelling on. "They start to break down and get soft, which creates a flavour base for the rest of the soup. The oil acts as a conductor for the heat, makes it nice and evenly distributed so it doesn't burn."

"Interesting." Jon had never really been bothered about cooking before- it wasn't as if London was lacking in places to get far better food than he could ever hope to make himself- but the fact that Martin cared made him interested. He watched the onions turn translucent and gleaming, watched Martin add the tomatoes he'd roasted in the oven and crush them carefully with the back of the spoon, and then leave the pan simmering under Jon's watch as he tore up fresh basil with his hands.

It had taken him too long to notice that Martin had such nice hands. He wanted to turn them over, trace the creases of his palms, feel the warmth of his touch. It wasn't entirely a conscious action, once they were sitting at the table eating the soups of Martin's labour, to reach over and take his free hand.

Martin didn't quite drop his spoon, but he did look up at Jon with wide eyes, and in the absolute silence that surrounded the cottage Jon could easily hear his little intake of breath.

"Jon?"

Having some kind of conversation about _why_ he was holding Martin's hand seemed both awkward and unnecessary. But he also refused to let go. He looked up to meet Martin's eyes and then back down, taking another spoonful of soup. "Thank you for dinner, it's delicious. And for the cooking lesson."

"Uh, you're welcome." Jon felt Martin's gaze on him for a moment, and then the sense of the tension in him easing a little. After a little while longer he turned his hand and slowly laced their fingers together, making Jon's pulse jump. "Maybe I should get a recipe book or download some of my favourites. I don't know that many by heart. And I'll teach you more, if you'd like."

"I would."

It was a few days later, a sunny Sunday morning, when, by some miracle, Jon woke first, blinking in the dark bedroom. Beside him Martin was curled on his side, closed in on himself in a way that ached to look at. After a long contemplation of the merits of crawling back under the duvet, Jon padded into the bathroom to splash some cold water on his face and then wandered downstairs into the kitchen and put the kettle on without consciously thinking about it. There was a half-finished loaf of bread wrapped up on the side, and a box of the kind of absurdly fresh eggs that you could only get in the middle of bloody nowhere.

Staring at the kettle he knew, suddenly, that Martin really liked scrambled eggs for breakfast. And Jon did at least know in theory how to make them.

He had worried since they left London that his distracted, terse, only half-human companionship wouldn't be enough to keep Martin safe and _here_ , and that he couldn't keep him out of the clutches of the Lonely by sheer force of will. This was something a normal person might do to show someone that they cared, that they weren't alone. He could still be normal, if he wanted.

Paranoia about burning, exploding or otherwise ruining the eggs meant that the toast and the tea were both getting a little cold by the time he gingerly made his way back up the stairs, balancing the mugs at an only slightly dangerous angle. Martin was sitting up and rubbing his eyes as Jon came back into the bedroom, and when he looked over he rubbed them again, harder.

"Morning," Jon said nonchalantly as he ducked slightly under the beam that ran across the room. He set down a mug of tea on the old crate next to Martin's side of the bed, and put the plate of scrambled eggs and toast into his lap. He wouldn't be getting any restaurant jobs of his own any time soon, but it was both completely cooked and completely _not_ burned or exploded, and that was what mattered.

"Is this… d-did you make me breakfast?"

"No, it's afternoon tea."

Martin made a little huffing sound that felt like a laugh, and looked down at the plate. The eggs were a brilliant, vivid yellow, beautiful against the dull old crockery that Daisy had kept here. He picked up one of the half-slices of toast and took a bite, closing his eyes as he swallowed. Jon had a sudden, vivid and entirely inappropriate thought concerning Martin swallowing with his eyes closed and violently shoved it down as he got back under the covers.

"Any good?"

"Yeah." Martin was staring down at the toast in his hand as if contemplating some grand mystery.

"There's no need to sound _quite_ so surprised."

"No, I'm just… thank you, Jon." Martin put the toast down and turned to look at him and then he did something Jon definitely didn't see coming. He leaned over and kissed him on the lips.

It wasn't like in a bad novel or some poetic foray more lurid than Martin's usual fare; no lights and colours exploded behind Jon's eyes, no great revelation came upon him from the beyond. Martin's mouth was resolutely closed and the kiss seemed half a question, one Jon tried to answer as gently as he could. _Yes_ , he wanted to say, _yes, please_. This was something every part of him could give Martin in earnest, even if he was quietly cataloging the way the tip of Martin's nose pressed against his cheek, the soft, slept-in smell of him. It didn't make his need to keep Martin close any lesser. It didn't make it less real.

When Martin pulled away it was with something alight in his eyes that Jon didn't think he'd ever seen before, but he turned back to his breakfast before Jon could drink it in as much as he wanted to. He'd just have to find a way to make it happen again. 

* * *

In the middle of their second week Martin left early in the morning to drive down to Inverness, to stock up on things they hadn't been able to bring with them and couldn't get at the local village shops. After having had his entire meagre wardrobe scrutinised so Martin could note down all his sizes, 'in case he saw something nice', Jon sent him off with a long list of books to look for in Waterstones. A warm, soft feeling nestled in his chest at the thought of Martin picking out clothes for him.

They kissed goodbye, softly, tentatively. It was nice in a way he didn't realise was still possible for him.

The cottage without Martin was odd; it felt colder, and quieter in a way that Jon thought he would enjoy but decidedly did not. He read distractedly for an hour or two and then found himself wandering up and down the stairs clutching a rapidly-cooling cup of tea, until he stopped again in the kitchen, standing over the corner where they'd tucked away an old cereal box behind the mop and broom. The statement box.

Whether it was unconscious foresight or just the paranoia of an addict, he'd started a personal stash of statements at home long before everything that had happened at the Institute last month. When they'd fled he'd grabbed a few, the most fresh and recent ones that he had, to tide him over until they figured something else out. He hadn't touched them since they arrived, wanting to preserve the sense of calm and peace that seemed to be slowly bringing something to the surface between them.

He could probably go another day or two without noticing any symptoms- it had been _profoundly_ satisfying to consume Peter Lukas- but he knew how much Martin hated the statements even if he'd never admit to it, how much he'd hurt himself reading them. He sighed, downed the remainder of the now-lukewarm tea with a slight gag, and pulled a file out of the box. He'd feel better, after, and could maybe even try to get something resembling dinner ready for when Martin got home.

The statement concerned a fairly straightforward- as much as the word could apply- encounter with the Spiral in the hedge maze at Longleat. The statement-giver had become lost with her husband for what seemed like days, the maze twisting and growing into an endless, claustrophobic forest of unnatural trees that eventually separated them, and the husband hadn't been seen since. Jon didn't need an assistant to tell him that he was still listed as a missing person.

Towards the end her narrative wavered, the thought-fracturing power of the Spiral pushing against the clarity the Institute granted. The fear he could taste in it was grief as well as madness, the way a person could come completely unwoven when a single key thread of their life was pulled out.

He went outside afterwards, fingers twitching around the ghost of a cigarette, and stared out at the heather-painted far side of the valley rising away in the distance, the long shadow of a cloud moving over it. It wasn't as good as pulling a statement straight from- from a _victim_ \- but the satiation was still settling into his body, the benediction of his ersatz god, and he tried not to think about how far it was to Inverness on narrow, empty roads, of all the many things mundane or otherwise that could be his own undoing.

It was early in the evening, the sun slipping towards the horizon, when he got the sense that Martin would be back soon and put some sausages in the oven for dinner; a few minutes later he heard the car being parked outside. The car doors thumped twice and then Martin was unlocking the front door of the cottage, laden with shopping bags and face flushed from the wind.

"Hello!" he said brightly, but there was a strong sense of relief about him as he came in, his gaze lingering as he looked at Jon. Had he been worried Jon might go roaming around the countryside trying to pull statements out of cows? Or had a day alone had adverse effects on him? It hadn't even been two weeks. Maybe they should have gone together.

It was a few more seconds before Jon realised that he'd utterly wasted the moment where a normal person would have gone up to kiss his… whatever they were. Live-in coworkers? In any case, it felt like the least awkward thing to do was just take some of the bags. There were books and clothes, snacks and a whole array of condiments and spices, and he went to start putting some things away when Martin called him over to the little kitchen table.

"I got us something special," he said, and started pulling things out of his largest bag, something pale blue exclaiming about a sale. One by one he laid on the table an ordnance survey map, a compass, a thermos flask, and two large, identical shoeboxes. Jon pulled one towards him and opened the lid to find a pair of hiking boots.

"I thought we could go walking," Martin said, "since it's so lovely up here, and, well."

"Since I don't get out enough." Jon lifted one of the boots out of the box. It was quite phenomenally ugly, but then who would ever see him wear them besides Martin, who had seen him covered in dirt and half-eaten by worms and almost all the way dead? "Okay. Let's go walking."

It was another couple of days before the weather felt decent enough for it, but waiting for a clear day was worth it. The sky in the Highlands was so huge it could easily be a domain of the Vast, the horizon from hilltop to hilltop stretching further than would even seem imaginable from deep in the heart of London. Whenever the footpath was even and wide enough for walking side by side, Martin would quickly slids his hand into Jon's, and it felt so right and so easy to be alone together in the overwhelming wilderness. One of the books Martin had bought was on Scottish wildlife and occasionally he would start talking excitedly about giant grouse and wildcats, but mostly they were silent, surrounded only by the sound of the wind and birds just out of sight.

A few miles from the cottage they came across a steep little wooded valley- a glen? It might have been a glen. Life without regular internet access and the ability to google things was horrific. At the bottom, strewn about with stones, was a deep stream running high and rapid with recent rainfall. Martin pulled the map out again and balanced the compass on top, tongue between his teeth as he studied it intently.

"I think we're supposed to be able to cross here, then pick up the path on the other side and head up the hill."

"Really? There's a lot of water." Good, trustworthy rivers were very wide and slow and a dubious brown colour, and they had bridges over them. This was none of those things.

"I _was_ in the Cubs, Jon. I think I can get across a stream." Martin folded the map back up and pushed it into Jon's hands, and stepped off the bank onto a large rock at the edge of the water. Arms held out wide either side of himself for balance, he started making his way across, and Jon watched intently from the bank.

He knew as it happened that it wasn't really happening, that he was seeing past seeing and into something else, but it didn't stop the sudden ice-grip of terror clutching his heart as he saw it: a branch slipping free in the rushing water, catching Martin's foot as he stepped over it, and sending him tumbling into the stream. A sickening, wet crack, and blood on the rocks. The rushing current snatching him and carrying him far away, where Jon would never find him, where Martin would be alone, and Jon would unravel into the monster he was trying to hold at bay.

 _"I could still feel the warmth of his hand in mine, but it was gone,"_ the statement-giver had said. _"I turned around and the forest behind me wasn't the forest we'd walked through together. It was as if without him reality was free to completely unwind."_

"Martin!" he shouted, seeing him take another step forward towards the treacherous branch. "Martin, _get back here!_ "

The words didn't feel that different leaving his mouth, but as soon as they emerged into the air he could feel the weight of them, a power that was different and yet unsettlingly familiar. Martin stopped dead, and then turned around sharply and scrambled back over the rocks, until Jon grabbed his arms and heaved him back up onto the bank.

He stared at Martin for a moment, wanting to shake him, to yell at him about his recklessness and thoughtlessness and didn't he know that Jon needed him, didn't he know that he wasn't allowed to die, but there was another course of action that was much more direct. Jon kissed him.

Before they had been chaste, almost nervous about it, as if they weren't already living together, as if they weren't already so entangled with one another that no-one else could ever get a look-in. This kiss was the complete opposite of that. Jon wrapped his arms around Martin, clutching him close, and his lips were laden with silent demands that Martin eagerly acquiesced to.

Despite his panic there was still a cool, analytical thread weaving through Jon's thoughts, carefully cataloguing this new knowledge: the softness of Martin's lips even after hours in the highland air, the taste of tea in his mouth, the way their tongues slid eagerly together even as Martin's hands settled so tentatively at his hips, because Martin was still so nervous about touching him, even flinching away a little at Jon's hand moving over his back before leaning back into it after.

He felt so alive. _Martin_ felt so alive, all the horrors of what Jon had briefly seen dissipating in the real, solid heat of his body, the way he was seeking after Jon now, their kisses turned hungry and needy. All the adrenaline coursing through him had found a new outlet and Jon could feel himself getting hard in his jeans. He knew, rationally, that he wasn't going to ravish Martin in some muddy glen- if it was, in fact, a glen- but his dick clearly hadn't got the message. Then again, it was increasingly obvious that neither had Martin's.

Still. Not the place for it. But maybe they should think about heading home, and… continuing things there. Jon turned his head, murmuring, "Martin," and let go enough that they could move apart and look each other in the eye. Martin was breathing heavily, his eyes dark.

"I- I don't," he stammered, licking his lips, "what just happened?"

Hopefully he didn't mean the kissing. "I, uh, saw you were about to- to get hurt. Before it happened. I _saw_ it." Jon ducked his head a little bashfully. "I suppose I got a bit carried away when you were alright."

"No, I didn't mind _that_ , it's just…" Martin examined his face for a moment before looking away, nibbling at his lower lip. "I didn't really _think_ about coming back. You shouted and I just… did it."

This time it was as if the ice had been poured over Jon from on high, and he felt suddenly cold all over. This time his dick definitely got the message. "Oh god, I'm so sorry Martin, I didn't mean to, I was just-"

"It's fine. I'm fine. Don't worry." Martin's face was getting red in a way that made Jon strongly suspect that it was not fine, but Martin only took his hand again and looked around them. "Do you want to try and find another way around or shall we head home?"

A moment ago Jon would have been willing to try and _carry_ Martin home. But he felt distrustful of himself now, of all the ways he had of hurting Martin that he couldn't even control, and at least the wind and the sky and the rugged hills felt like a bit of a buffer between them. It made him feel small and human, and like the thoughts in his head wondering what else he could order Martin to do were not really his own. It felt safer.

"Let's carry on." Hopefully he hadn't managed to make things irrevocably weird. 

* * *

Martin seemed perfectly normal when they finally got home, and all through the next day, getting stuck into one of his new books and giving Jon a gentle kiss on the cheek when he brought him tea. Jon tried to focus on an Ian McEwan novel and not get too distracted by lurid ideas about pulling Martin down into his lap or pressing him against a wall and resuming where they'd left off.

It wasn't that he didn't think- didn't _know_ \- that Martin would eagerly reciprocate. He'd wanted this far longer than Jon had, after all. But he might push it, might let the hunger inside him overcome him and take and take from Martin, who had already given him so much.

And there was definitely _something_ on Martin's mind that he wasn't sharing and that Jon couldn't figure out. His glances lingered just a little bit too long, unless Jon looked back, and then he'd flush with embarrassment and pretend to be very interested in a doorknob or a weird mark on the wall.

It was almost unbearable to not know what it was, as if Martin was aggressively having a secret _at him_ , daring Jon to pull it out of him. But Jon wouldn't. If this thing between them was ever going to go anywhere, Martin needed him to be a person, not a monster, someone who could at least control the voracious hunger that ate at him. He considered reading another statement to see if it would take the edge off, but until they heard from Basira about sending more he needed to ration them out carefully.

So he read his book, and walked the mile and a half to the village to buy milk and bread, and made pleasant, inane conversation while Martin made them dinner. As they were finishing eating- some incredibly delicious concoction of eggs in a tomato sauce- Martin took his hand, tracing a pattern over the base of his thumb.

"We should talk," he said, and met Jon's eyes briefly before looking away, and Jon's stomach lurched sickeningly. There were definitely worse sentences than "we should talk", but they all generally involved worms or spiders or the Cult of the Lightless Flame.

"Okay," he said, and Martin smiled and squeezed his hand. Surely it couldn't be that bad?

"Tea first though."

* * *

"So," Martin said, shifting awkwardly on the sofa as he set his empty mug down. Jon turned to look at Martin looking at him, and watched as his tongue flicked out to wet his lip. Why did he insist on doing that? Did he know how distracting it was, how much Jon wanted to-

"There's, ah. There's something I wanted to, um." Martin met his eyes and then quickly looked away, his face getting noticeably redder. "There's something I'd like you to ask me."

Jon mentally sat on every weird thought that bubbled up in his head and raised a deliberate, arch eyebrow. "Can't you just tell me?"

Martin looked like he might explode, but he just mumbled, "No." After a deep breath he added, "I don't just mean ask. I mean, you know, _ask_. Do your… your thing, on me. I just- I don't think I'll be able to say it all otherwise."

Jon's heart was racing. Could Martin actually _want_ to have information compelled out of him? To have things about himself pulled out and hoarded in Jon's brain? 'Hoarded' was definitely the word for it. He was greedy for Martin, wanted to curl himself, dragon-like, atop a pile of secret, beautiful Martin-knowledge, all kept selfishly for himself. Well, himself and Beholding. Whatever the difference was.

He set his empty mug down and turned so he was on the edge of his seat and properly facing Martin, who was still staring into the middle distance, face looking hot enough to cook an egg on.

"Are you _sure?_ "

"Yes." Martin didn't look at him, but he shifted awkwardly in his seat. Jon was trying to sit as still as possible in order to get his dick to calm down. "Please just- just ask."

It felt like there should be some sort of ritual to it, or at least a tape recorder- Jon glanced around to check that one hadn't conveniently appeared. But there was nothing, just them and the cottage's tiny, sparsely furnished living room, so he took a deep breath, leaned forward slightly, and _said_ , "Martin, what aren't you telling me?"

Martin shuddered slightly and made a high-pitched noise Jon couldn't parse, and then he said, with all the clear conviction of a statement-giver, "I really want to have sex with you, and I want you to use your Archivist powers on me when we do it."

Jon, a very serious adult possessed of wide-ranging supernatural powers granted by an ineffable being of vast cosmic malevolence, fell off the sofa. It was one of his worse furniture-falls, not least because losing your balance while trying to conceal a growing hard-on turned out to be an extremely uncomfortable experience. Martin, being Martin, immediately leapt up to fuss over him and pull him to his feet, face still puce as he muttered about bruises and the edge of the makeshift coffee table and a hundred other things that Jon simply didn't care about right then.

Once they were both standing Jon found himself reaching out for Martin, turning his head so they were facing each other, staring until Martin stopped talking. He ran a thumb over Martin's cheek, and _asked_.

"How long have you wanted me to do this?"

Martin's pulse fluttered under his palm. "I wondered after we came here if it might… might help you, to feed on stuff other than statements. But I've fancied you for ages, even when you were- you weren't very nice to me. And when we found out you had, you know, powers, I thought I'd be freaked out but I couldn't help thinking about you making me say things… making me tell you how I felt, what I wanted. Or after you went into that coffin, when I realised you could make me _do_ things too… I knew I should have been upset about it, but it just made me want you more."

It would have been unbelievable if he hadn't known in the taste of every word that they were true, hadn't felt this knowing-of-Martin slide into his mind like a good wine sliding down his throat. Fear stuttered in his mind, that he could push things too far, that Martin would find reality less to his tastes, but it was swamped in the overwhelming desire to finally know and take and have in all the ways he desperately wanted. He wanted _everything_ , and he pushed his hand into Martin's hair to pull him into a kiss.

His lips were so soft. Martin gave a little gasp and then his mouth opened under Jon's like it was full of secrets, all ready for the taking. He moved closer and slid an arm oh-so-tentatively around Jon's waist, as if he still didn't realise just how much Jon needed it.

And maybe that was where Jon's greed outpaced his patron's, raced past it into the distance. He didn't want to just catalogue Martin as he was, make an archive of him; he wanted to hoard away for himself all the sights and the sounds and the sensations of Martin learning to accept touch, _Jon's_ touch, to expect it and enjoy it and come undone underneath it, to return it eagerly in kind. He wanted to crash all the sharp and broken parts of both of them together and know every spark that flew from it.

He started walking them towards the bedroom, up the narrow stairs. Martin was only slightly shorter than him, and, like basically everyone over the age of seven, stronger than him, but he went as easily as if Jon were really pushing him back, both hands clutching at Jon's jumper as he made small sounds against his mouth.

They only stopped when he had to catch Martin from stumbling, and he realised they were right up against the bed. If this were a film they'd probably fall onto it passionately without a moment's hesitation, but given that they were both extremely good at getting injured and that would definitely ruin the mood, it seemed like that might not be the best idea. He tugged at Martin's hair to pull their mouths apart, and saw his face was flushed in a different way now, his eyes darker and a little hazy, lips slightly swollen.

What would Martin look like when Jon made him come? When he was tired and boneless with pleasure, after, curled in the sheets of their little bed? What would he look like if Jon could make him happy, as happy as he deserved to be and probably never had been?

He would find out. He would _know_.

"Why don't you take your clothes off, Martin?" he asked, and Martin shuddered again like he had in the living room and then he was tugging his jumper up and off over his head, taking the t-shirt underneath with it, and sitting down on the edge of the bed to tug his shoes and socks off.

Jon stood over him, half wondering if it was weird that he wasn't following suit, that he was just standing there fully clothed and raking his eyes over every inch of Martin's skin that was revealed, like he could memorise it all at once. Martin threw his second sock into the corner of the room and looked up, and the light in his face was almost too bright to behold.

He knew that Martin loved him, had known it for a while in the way he knew a lot of things he shouldn't and had known it a little less long in the usual way. But he had never really _seen_ it before, like this, written in bright devotion across Martin's face. No-one else could see this, could know Martin like this; only him.

"Ask me something," Martin said, voice trembling, and Jon had no resistance to him either.

"Tell me a fantasy you have. About me."

"In your office. Back- back at the institute. I'd come in by accident while you were recording, and you'd get annoyed but tell me not to leave. That I might as well make myself useful. And you'd beckon me over to your side of the desk and I wouldn't know what to think until you- you pulled me down onto your lap, in that big chair. And I'd feel how hard you were as you started unbuckling my belt, pulling my trousers down, and maybe you'd let me kiss you before telling me what to do."

Martin paused, his breathing ragged, and Jon wished it was at all feasible to go back down to London and steal that chair. He'd have to get a new chair. An even sexier chair.

"There's a few things that would happen next," Martin continued. "Maybe you'd push me over the desk and f-fuck me just like I wanted you to. Maybe you'd have me sit on your cock while you finished the statement, and tell me I had to be quiet and be good for you. And I'd try so hard to be good for you." He licked his lips and Jon wanted to tell him he _was_ good, the best, but he wanted to let Martin continue speaking even more. "But I wouldn't make it, and you'd tell me I'd ruined the recording, that I'd have to be p-punished… you'd fuck me over your desk again- I always wanted you to do that- but this time you'd spank me until I couldn't focus on anything, feel anything else but you. And you'd always leave the tape recorder on."

There was a long pause where they did nothing but stare at each other, where the blood roared in Jon's ears like a winter gale, and then he said, "Fuck," and dropped to his knees in front of Martin. He was kissing him again almost instinctively, like he wanted to draw the remnants of Martin's words from his mouth, gorge on every morsel. He dragged his hand down Martin's bare chest, over a thin scar, the peak of his nipple, the softness of his belly, to fumble open his belt.

"Have to see you," he mumbled by way of an explanation, thumbing open the button of Martin's jeans as he pressed a kiss to his jaw, finding the faint hint of stubble against his lips. He pushed the zip down and breathed in hard as Martin spread his legs a little wider for his seeking hand.

Jon didn't particularly want to dwell on how long it had been since he'd had a man naked in his bed, but he could say with a researcher's objective certainty that Martin had the nicest cock he'd ever seen. It was flushed and hot in his hand, a beautiful contrast to his own darker skin, and he couldn't help swiping his thumb over the head to catch the precome beading there. Martin shook bodily and groaned, " _Jon_ ," and he wanted to replay and analyse every oscillation of it forever.

"Tell me about the first time someone touched you like this." A small part of him, sulky and covetous and _very_ human, didn't want to think about anyone else touching Martin, but it was far outweighed by the absolute need to know. He began to stroke Martin's cock slowly, trying to draw on everything he could remember about how to actually have sex with another person, and looked up to meet his eyes.

"I was seventeen. When I was still in sixth-form, I had a- well, we weren't really going out, but me and Alex both had a free lesson on Wednesday afternoons so we'd go round his house to do homework, and, things, uhh." Martin's words were interspersed with soft, throaty little noises as Jon's hand moved on him, his eyes hooded. "He kissed me after I solved a chemistry problem for him. He had these warm, soft hands and he touched me like I m-mattered."

Jon closed his eyes under the rush of Martin's words. It wasn't the same as a statement, that sensation of a hunger sated, but something deeper inside of him, maybe something that was just him and him alone, was wrapping itself up in Martin like a blanket, like a cloth of gold. He dipped his head almost without thinking and took Martin's cock into his mouth.

Martin was still talking but he couldn't focus on it at first, too overwhelmed with the feel and the taste of him. It had been too long, and he had taken far too long to admit to himself what he wanted, _who_ he wanted more than freedom or fear or the breath in his own lungs. Martin's hands were stroking and combing through his hair, and his words were seeping back in at the edges of Jon's mind.

"-but it was never _like this_ , never with anyone but you, only you Jon, I-" and then he was tugging upwards at his hair. Jon lifted his head reluctantly, licking his lips as he looked back up into Martin's face and relishing the sharp intake of breath.

"I don't- not yet," Martin stammered, and Jon swallowed a little huff as he straightened up, reaching for Martin to kiss him again. He was definitely going to have to take his own clothes off soon because his trousers had never been so uncomfortable. As if he'd overheard, Martin's arm slipped around his waist and began untucking his shirt, still as carefully as if Jon hadn't just had his cock in his mouth.

"You can touch me, Martin," he said, moving to kiss along his jaw. "I want you to."

Martin's palm settled warm and solid at the small of his back, sending heat curling up Jon's spine. "I'm not dreaming, am I?" he asked, a wobble in his voice without the compulsion to truth steadying him. "Because I've definitely had this dream before."

"You tell me."

" _Oh_ ," he said, and Jon didn't mean it that time, but Martin started talking again as he began working his shirt upwards. "It started when I was staying in the Archives, after Prentiss. I dreamed that you'd come to that room when you were working late, because you- you wanted me. At first I suppose all I could imagine was you wanting some stress relief. I'd suck you off and you'd say, 'thank you, Martin', and you'd leave. But then sometimes it would be more- you'd want more, you'd be as desperate for me as I was for you, and you'd stay with me afterwards, holding me close. Those were always the worst to wake up from. Because I knew they were definitely lies."

Martin made a strangled sound after he finished, pulling his hand back as he said, "Oh fuck, I didn't- I've made it weird, you don't have to say anything, we can stop."

Jon leaned back and the look on Martin's face was a horrible mix of embarrassment, sadness and fear. He found himself cataloguing it even as he was sure he never wanted to see it again- maybe because of that. He grabbed the bottom of his shirt, tugging the rest of it out of his trousers, and then pulled it up and over his head. He'd probably lose a button the next time he tried to put it on, after putting that stress on them, but he didn't have it in him to care. His hands found their way inexorably back to Martin again, and this time they were bracing Jon's weight against his chest as he got a knee up onto the bed between Martin's thighs.

"Do _you_ want to stop?" he asked, looking down into Martin's face.

"No. God, no."

"Good." He wasn't sure what he'd have done if Martin had said yes. Stopped, obviously, but it would have _hurt_ in a way he wasn't sure he knew how to deal with. "Do you think all I want is for you to tell me things, Martin? How can you _tell_ me how your hands feel on my skin? What it's like to make you moan? How you _taste?_ " He dipped for a kiss there, and Martin licked up eagerly into his mouth. "I need these things. They belong to me."

"I belong to you," Martin said breathlessly, and yes, yes, he did, and not to Elias or Peter Lukas or any other bastard that wanted to steal him, and Jon kissed him with a ferocity he didn't realise he possessed. It was aggravating that he had to climb off Martin to take his shoes and socks and both of their trousers and underwear off, that he couldn't always be touching him everywhere when that's what he _needed_ , but at least he got to see the excited widening of Martin's eyes as he awkwardly wrangled his boxers off.

"What do you want?" Martin asked once they were tangled on the bed together, his eyes returning to Jon's face, and a hundred things tumbled hungrily through Jon's mind. He wanted Martin's cock in his mouth again, wanted his hands, wanted to tease and finger him open for hours, wanted to find some way to enact Martin's office-based fantasy even without the desk and the sexy chair, wanted, _wanted_. He shook his head, swallowed.

"I mean unless you secretly have some lube, I'll-"

"Oh, actually," Martin began, and then rolled away and wriggled half-off the bed to reach underneath, pulling out a little Boots carrier bag. He shook out the contents, and two kinds of lube and three boxes of condoms spilled onto the duvet. "When I went down to Inverness the other day I… I didn't want to not to, and then wish I had. Sorry."

Jon shook his head slightly, suppressing a laugh. How completely, utterly _Martin_. There was no need to pull the story out of him; he could perfectly picture Martin standing in the aisle chewing his lip, weighing up condom brands like they presented an intense moral dilemma. He pulled Martin back to him, tracing a cartographic trail down his back as they kissed, and Martin's hands were on him too, gentle still but much less apprehensive. Jon had forgotten how sensitive he was to someone else's touch, his skin twitching and tingling as Martin traced reverently over his scars. When Martin rolled onto his back Jon followed him easily, settling between his legs again like it was where he belonged.

"Do you want to fuck me?" Martin breathed after kissing his way up to Jon's ear. "Because I'd… I'd like that."

He did. He did. He wanted to feel and know and _have_ Martin in every way he could. He sat back onto his knees to reach for the lube and the condoms, grabbing whichever ones he could reach first. He should have been more methodical, should have gone carefully and noted every shade of Martin's reactions as Jon knocked his legs a little wider open, squeezed some lube out onto his fingers, pressed them, cold, to his hole. He should have catalogued and categorised the feel of Martin's hand on his cock, the way he managed to make ripping the condom packet open with his teeth both awkward _and_ sexy, the look of absolute devotion in his eyes as he rolled it onto Jon.

He wanted to know, but he wanted to _be_ , just be in that moment with Martin and let knowing settle behind in the impressions his fingers left, in the absences where his eyes passed. Martin hitched a leg up over his hip, gazing up at him, and Jon felt a wave of nervousness travel through him.

"It's, uh, been a little while for me," he confessed. "I'll do my best."

"For me too," Martin said with a lopsided smile, and Jon thought about all the time he knew and he _knew_ Martin had been pining after him, and it burned in his chest.

"I love you," he said, the words travelling out from deep, deep down in his blood. He knew Beholding coveted Martin like he did- maybe _because_ he did- knew it wanted him kept close where he belonged. He didn't think the entities were capable of anything like _love_ , but he was going to do his damnedest to try to _make_ it love Martin, make all the hungry, dark curiosity that suffused him as intent and obsessed and devoted as he was in his own soft, animal heart. Maybe that way Martin would finally be safe.

"Oh, Jon," Martin said, and as he reached down to guide Jon into him his eyes were glittering with tears.

"Tell me," Jon said as he bottomed out, ducking his head to kiss the scar high on Martin's chest. "Tell me what you're feeling."

"Like maybe I died and didn't notice it, but there actually is a heaven," Martin said, and smiled, a tear glinting as it slid away over the curve of his cheek. "Like everything's- everything's so much more real. Like- god, _Jon_ \- like you just said you love me and you're inside me and it's so much better than all my shitty dreams and I don't want it to ever be over." Jon interrupted him with a kiss, tentatively starting to move his hips and thrust into Martin's tight, warm body, and Martin tipped his head back against the pillow, his mouth falling open.

"It feels- feels like you're mine," he gasped, and Jon dug his fingers into the duvet. Maybe he could be, at least a little bit. Maybe if a part of him was always Martin's then he'd never entirely lose his humanity; like a bone anchor, like a voice always calling him home.

He couldn't find a steady rhythm, not with Martin's legs clasped around him and the sounds that tumbled from his mouth every time Jon so much as thought about moving. He put enough trust in the strength of his left arm to reach down between them with his right, to take Martin in his hand again and stroke him steadily. He couldn't help staring at his face, watching the pleasure bloom across it, trying to remember the ways you could know a person without just plucking all their secrets out of their head.

That was worth knowing too. Everything was, for Martin.

It was probably a better showing than Martin's teenage not-boyfriend, but he found himself edging up to orgasm much sooner than he'd have liked, and buried his head in the crook of Martin's neck, kissing and sucking and then digging his teeth in as he came. Martin was still rocking up into him and Jon kept working his cock, lifting his head again to watch the way his eyes screwed up and his mouth went slack, all for Jon, for his eyes and no-one else.

He managed to not be a complete slob long enough to tie the condom off and chuck it in the bin at the foot of the bed, and grab some tissues to help Martin clean himself up. Really he just wanted to be touching Martin again, and quickly turned cleanup into pulling the duvet over both of them and tugging him in close, pressing a last kiss to the bright, fresh mark on his neck.

"Wow," Martin said delightedly, lacing their fingers together, his breathing still settling. "Well, that's one rumour debunked."

"Hmm?"

"A- A while back Basira told me that Melanie told her that Georgie told _her_ that you, you know, weren't interested at all. With anyone. I knew you liked men but I wasn't quite sure what to think until the other day, when we…"

"Oh." It was an awkward truth and Martin was hardly wrenching it out of him, but he offered it up anyway. "I never actually told Georgie that going out with her made me realise I was gay. It seemed… rude." Martin snorted, which was also rude. "And I suppose it was too much hassle most of the time anyway. Men are… messy, and I always had so many other things to occupy my time. And then, well, then there was you."

Something flickered across Martin's face, a shadow of the loneliness that still yearned to swallow him, that was going to have to learn to abide by Jon's prior and thorough claim. "I'm afraid I'm quite messy."

"You're worth it." He really didn't think he had ever felt anything even half as powerful as what he did for Martin. It might have terrified him, if he didn't have so many other, scarier things to be afraid of.

"I'm sorry if it was too much. You know, asking you to do… stuff to me. We don't have to again if you don't want to, or if it didn't help."

"What made you think I didn't like it?" He'd been a little surprised by just how much he did like it. How much it gave him a sense of control over _himself_ as much as over Martin. And while he didn't quite feel the sense of satiation that followed a statement, there was something about all the truths he'd consumed that felt settling, soothing to the hunger that gnawed inside him.

"Oh." Martin met his eyes then, and reached out to touch Jon's face, soft fingertips tracing over his cheekbone. "I'd hoped… I love that part of you too, you know. I don't care if it's all part of some evil giant eye's plan to do whatever. It's you."

"Martin…" Jon could only kiss him again, could find no other way to express himself. He curled himself into Martin's embrace, into the welcoming heat of his body and the simple, human comfort of closeness.

Over their heads, the patter of rain on the roof slowly increased in tempo. Martin's tousled hair smelled like misty air and woodsmoke and oranges, his head tucked in close under Jon's chin. For the first time in months, maybe years, sleep came up easily on him before he even realised it.

He didn't dream.

* * *

Jon woke to the sound of rain still drumming on the roof overhead and the warmth of Martin beside him in the bed. He blinked and rubbed at his eyes, then turned to see Martin lying on his side, head propped up on one elbow, watching him.

"Good morning," he said sleepily, and cast about for Martin's other hand to entwine their fingers. Memories from the night before drifted into his mind, overlapping with one another, stirring the slow ember burning in his heart.

"Morning," Martin replied, and there was a slight tremor to it, something slightly unstuck in his expression. Jon sat up a little against the pillows and leaned in to kiss him, cupping his face with a free hand. Martin sighed against his mouth, tension easing out of him, and Jon stroked the prickly curve of his jaw. It was so easy now. He was going to kiss Martin every morning for the rest of his life.

"Sorry," Martin said after, although there was certainly nothing to apologise for in his kissing technique. "I just… it's a lot, you know."

"I know," Jon said, and added, "I love you," because he intended to say it often, now, and because he wanted to drink in the way Martin's eyes widened and a smile tugged at his mouth. Martin dipped to kiss him again and Jon reached for him, his shoulders and his soft hair, pulling Martin down against him into the warmth of their bed.

"It's still raining," Martin said, splaying his hand against Jon's chest, his thumb resting in the hollow of a worm scar. "Probably shouldn't go out today."

"Mm. I was thinking of staying in." They had nowhere to be. He could spend the whole day getting lost in Martin's body and pretending that nothing and no-one else existed in the entire world. Even if he had no right to such indulgences, surely Martin did. Their gazes met. and he could see so many things in Martin's deep green eyes, so much that he wanted to know.

"Tell me what you'd like to do," he said, and Martin began.

**Author's Note:**

> And then maybe Jon went on a strict diet of only awkward stories about Martin's sex life and everything was okay forever, the end.


End file.
